Friday, June 6, 2014

I shudder to think

Does the Most Holy Eucharist have an objective significance, value, worth and importance or is the significance of the Most Holy Eucharist one of subjectivity? Is the Eucharist important primarily because of what "It" can accomplish within the recipient or communicant? Is the Eucharist important on account of how we benefit from "It"(Him) or would it be more in keeping with a heart animated by the Spirit of Glory to maintain that the Eucharist is important because the Eucharist is Jesus whose dignity and significance rests within Himself and not in our ability to receive Him worthily. Just as your dignity does not rest upon your surroundings so too with the Holy Eucharist because the Eucharist is not so much an "It" as it is a "Who", the very Person of Christ, the Word made flesh. Christ's worth and value are independent of us. Who among us if we had walked the roads of Galilee say around the time Christ turned 30 years old and was about to begin His public ministry would have said to Him, "Jesus, the only thing about you that really matters is how you can make me more like You"? Wouldn't this have betrayed the sense that His worth or dignity consisted in what He could do for others and not because of who He was? I shudder to think of a world in which we think and act in relation to one another based on this mentality and yet I have heard this in relation to the Eucharist. I have heard it said, that what's really important about the Eucharist is not that "It" is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ but rather how "It" makes me and you more like Christ. While the fruit of Christ's Real Presence in our spiritual development is of the greatest importance, it is an importance that flows from the Dignity of the Very Person of Christ who in the Eucharist is God in the flesh. We must maintain a distinction between the Dignity and the Fruit of the Eucharist. The Dignity of the Eucharist pertains to the Incarnate Word. The Fruit of the Eucharist pertains to us?

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